


Not Just A River In Egypt

by Weevilo707



Series: Of Heaven and Earth Alternate Timeline AU [4]
Category: Gravity Falls, Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Angst, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Of Heaven and Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 17:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: There's some new hunters in town, and they're a little strange. From a distance, denial and determination look pretty damn similar.





	Not Just A River In Egypt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ourhappygirl500](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ourhappygirl500).



John was trying to stay out of sight, but it was harder than he expected.

There were new hunters in town, and they didn’t seem to be affiliated with the old ones. Maybe? It was hard to tell, which was why he was trying to get some more information. Normally he’d try and stay out of the way if he could help it, but it kinda seemed important. He just figured he’d get a quick look, see what he could see, before going off.

Except whoever this was definitely knew he was there, and John couldn’t  _ lose _ him. Twisting and turning through alleys, even making a short hop a couple blocks away. Whenever he thought he was free he’d rest, and then a few minutes later this hunger would pop up again, looking around for something. For him.

He was getting tired of it. It’d been two hours now, he was getting impatient.

“Okay, I give. How are you  _ doing _ that?” he asked, appearing up on top of a tall fence a ways away from the hunter. He jumped, whipping around to face him, somehow having the nerve to look surprise.

“Oh hey, it worked!” the hunter said, grinning and pulling out a book that they proceeded to write something down in. He had some sort of weird crystal hanging from a string, which was glowing and pointing towards John. Well, that explained that.

“Wait, did you not know if you were tracking me?” John asked, the confusion knocking away some of the caution he felt. The hunter shrugged, putting his book away again.

“I figured I was tracking  _ something, _ I just wasn’t sure if it was a ghost or not, so thanks! Big help,” he said, and yeah, John was confused. Like, he was often confused, but more so than usual.

“Are you gonna try to like, kill me? Aren’t you a hunter?” he asked. He wanted answers, he guessed the best way to get them would be to ask outright.

“Oh yeah, I mean no I’m not gonna kill you, not unless you try anything and then I totally could man. Don’t test me, but yeah? Maybe researcher would be better,” this not-hunter explained, and yep, John was lost.

“Okay then, I guess I’ll just be… going. Don’t keep tracking me? Kinda an invasion of privacy, or something,” John said, and the not hunter nodded. As John went to leave though the hunter stopped him.

“Wait! Uh, before you go have you seen like, another ghost? One who looks like me, but a girl,” he asked, and John paused, giving the hunter a look over.

“No, why?” he asked, although he had a few theories, especially from the disappointed look on the hunter’s face.

“Oh, well, if you do see her, can you tell her Dipper’s looking for her?” he asked, and John shrugged, nodding.

“Sure, don’t see why not,” he said, and with that he disappeared. He didn’t know if he’d keep that promise, but it seemed like a harmless enough one to make.

——

Rose was skeptical, but intrigued.

The man who’d come into their little establishment clearly knew what they did here. She hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to the boy that was with him yet, he’d run off with a determined look on his face. It was a look she’d recognized but didn't comment on.

She’d texted Dirk, and she wasn’t sure where mom or bro was, so that left her to deal with him until someone else showed up.

“So, how did you hear about us again, Ford, was it?” she asked, and the older man nodded.

“Yes! Ford Pines, it’s- I was an acquaintance of Jacob, years ago,” he explained. Convenient that the person he knew was no longer around, she had no way to verify what he was saying.

“Right, and you were saying you’re aware of our operation?” she asked. Once again he nodded, seeming almost eager to talk about this stuff.

“But of course, I run my own, rather similar establishment. You’ve never heard of us? I know it’s been quite some time since we’ve last spoke, and since poor Jacob was around, but I had only assumed,” he said, and Rose shook her head.

“It would seem that there’s a lot of things that aren’t talked about here, don’t worry,” she said. Of course there were more secrets, there were always more secrets. Someday she swore she’d unravel them all.

“Is there an adult I could talk to perhaps? There’s quite a few things I’d like to run by the ones in charge now,” Ford asked, and Rose kept a fake pleasant smile on her face, despite the irritation at being dismissed.

“Oh I’m sure they’ll show up sooner or later. Until then I can help you with whatever you need, I’ll assure you I’m quite qualified,” she said. Ford seemed to hesitate a moment before giving in and nodding. “Now, what brings you back here after such a long time?” she asked. Once again she could see the man pause, clearly debating how much he could tell her.

“We’re looking for a particular spirit. We have cause to believe she ah, headed this way,” he said, and she could tell he was still hiding something from her.

“Why are you looking for this spirit?” she said, already standing up to go to her crystal ball to give an attempt at tracking whoever this spirit was. “Are they a particular danger? We should be able to handle it, although any help you could provide would be appreciated,” she added, but Ford shook his head.

“Oh no, I really don’t think- it’s not that sort of situation,” he said, following her to her office. As Rose sat down to begin the spell, to look for any new souls, she glanced up every so often at Ford. She didn’t say anything to press him, and that seemed to be the right choice, the man sighing after a long moment of internal debate.

“She’s Dipper’s sister. We just- we want to bring her home,” he said, and Rose felt the polite smile on her face dip some at that, before nodding.

“Of course, let’s see what we can see.”

——

Jade tended not to get involved in these sorts of things, but she supposed helping out just this once wouldn’t hurt. She’d feel bad if she didn’t do  _ something. _

There was a spirit, obviously pretty new. She didn’t look as distraught as new spirits typically did, but she did seem to be pretty lost. She was also out walking around during the day, pretty close to where people were. It was only a matter of time before the wrong person noticed her, and that would end bad.

“Hi there!” she said, waving to get her attention and trying to look friendly. It wasn’t too hard for her to look friendly. She felt like she was a pretty friendly person when she wanted to be.

“Hello!” this spirit said, sounding happy and relieved to have someone talking to her.

“Hey, are you lost? You kind of look like you aren’t sure where you’re going,” Jade asked, figuring that would be the easiest thing to start with.

“Oh gosh, yeah! Finally someone noticed, people have been avoiding me like I’m  _ invisible _ or something. I thought people were just really rude out here. Not sure where I am, I started running and I figured I’d stop when I got tired, but I never did. Guess I don’t know my own stamina,” this spirit said, and as she spoke Jade felt her smiling slowly slip off her face. Whoever this spirit was she didn’t seem to notice, continuing to talk on, although Jade wasn’t much listening anymore.

It was pretty obvious that she also hadn’t noticed that she was dead.

“Alright, well uh, I’m sure we can figure out what to do. What’s your name and uh, where are you from?” Jade asked, wondering if it would be good to rip the bandage off fast or to try and ease her into it.

“Oh duh, how rude of me! I’m Mabel, and you are?” she asked, and Jade smiled a bit at that.

“Jade,” she answered.

“Well Jade, right now I’m  _ supposed _ to be staying in Gravity Falls with my uncles and twin bro. Oh, he’s probably going crazy not able to find me, or at least, even more crazy than he already is,” she said brightly. Her enthusiasm was infectious, even if Jade couldn’t help feeling bad thinking about what her brother was going through. He was probably going way more crazy than Mabel realized. There wasn’t anything anyone could do about that now though.

“Cool, well then Mabel, how about you uh, come with me and we’ll figure out if we can get you back home,” Jade offered, and Mabel grinned widely at her. It was easy to see through her to the building she was standing in front of.

“Alright Jade, sounds good! What’s the worse that could happen?” she asked. Jade didn’t answer, because it seemed the worst had already happened.

———

Dave had gotten the rundown from Rose, wincing as she told him what she knew of the situation. It sounded like it sucked a hell of a lot, and there wasn’t an easy solution to fix it.

It had been easier when he’d thought of the spirits as soulless monsters with code names instead of actual names with whole previous lives. He kinda wished he could go back to that, but there wasn’t much of a way to stop knowing something once you found out.

He had been avoiding that Dipper kid in the meantime though. He seemed nice enough and all that, but who knew how that kind of stress and shit affected a person. He was clearly in denial at least, certain some where they could- what?  _ Talk _ his sister into not needing to devour people’s souls to live? Dave was pretty sure at this point they didn’t have much of a choice.

Still, it wasn’t any of his business. Technically it wasn’t any of theirs business. Mom and Bro had ruled that the Pines had complete authority to what happened to this new spirit, named Shooting Star just for the log books. Dave guessed they disliked having to use real names as much as he did.

He’d been pretty successful in avoiding the dude, at least up until now, where he quite literally ran into the guy.

“Ouch, sorry dude,” Dave apologized automatically, twisting around to look at him. He’d quickly grabbed his hat and put it back on, and Dave could see some weird crystals scattered about the ground. “Uh, whatcha doing?”

“Trying to see if I can use a new tracking method. The kind you have here is good, but I want to see if I can use several crystals to sort of triangulate the location of a spirit,” he explained. That made enough sense to Dave, so he was probably dumbing it way down. “Pass me that chain,” he said, pointing towards a silver chain that had gotten thrown when they fell.

“Sure,” Dave said, handing it over. Dipper seemed pretty concentrated, and he could probably leave and he wouldn’t even notice. Despite that he stayed where he was, because Dave had never been great at not talking.

“So like… once you find her, what are you gonna do?” he asked, curious despite himself. Dipper didn’t seem upset with the question at least, continuing to work.

“Well first we need to see if there’s some way we can create a substance she can exist on that doesn’t draw from human life. Or at least, doesn’t kill a person outright,” he said like it was obvious. Sure, it seemed like a pretty handy thing, if it was possible.

“You think someone would have made something like that by now if it was possible,” he said, and Dipper’s expression only turned even more determined at that.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said, and despite himself Dave nodded. He seemed pretty damn determined. Maybe he really could do it.

Or at least, Dave kinda hoped he could.

———

Mabel had been having a pretty wild time lately. How it started was kinda foggy, but she was trying not to think about that too much. What was important was moving forward! She wasn’t sure where she was or how she’d gotten so far from home, but she’d made a new friend.

She could figure this out and get back to Dipper before he completely lost what was left of his marbles. He would probably be super mad at her, but it wasn’t like she  _ meant _ to stay away from home for, uh, however long she’d been gone. At least a couple of days.

Except she was smarter than people gave her credit for, and Mabel could tell something was wrong. She could tell that her body didn’t feel like it used to, it didn’t feel much at all. People didn’t notice her much anymore either, and her new friend Jade knew  _ something,  _ but she hadn’t told her yet.

She noticed all of these things, but she wasn’t thinking about them. Whatever it all meant she wasn’t that interested in. Those kinds of big revelations were Dipper’s forte, not hers. Mabel just needed to get home, and then she could figure everything else out later, or let Dipper do it.

The only issue was that Mabel hadn’t tried to head home yet. She could have. It wouldn’t be too hard to find a map or a bus schedule and start making her way back. There was no way she’d gotten  _ that _ far away, even with the weird way she didn’t get tired when walking around anymore. For some reason though she hadn’t yet. Whatever had happened had been pretty bad, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to head back into  _ that _ whole mess yet. So maybe she was trying to avoid it just a teeny-tiny bit.

She wasn’t able to keep it up for very long though. She was mostly sticking by Jade now, but sometimes Mabel couldn’t help going off on her own.

She’d gotten distracted, and was off wandering without Jade.

She didn’t expect to see Dipper run around a corner, crystals and bobbles hanging around his neck and in his hands like he was trying to track a whole army of ghosts.

It took a few seconds longer for him to see her than it should have. As soon as he did though relief flooded his face. And something like horror, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Mable, there- there you are. I’ve been looking e-everywhere for you,” Dipper said, his voice shaking. Mabel laughed a bit unsteadily, nodding and taking a step back.

“Haha, yeah. Hey bro, what uh, whatcha doing with all those funky crystals and junk?” she asked, forcing a smile onto her face. Dipper was looking at her, clearly confused now.

“I was using them to track you, since you’re… you’re… you know,” he said, and Mabel shook her head.

“Nope, can’t say I do, brobro,” she said, still laughing a bit nervously. Dipper was watching her with concern now, but she told herself she didn’t know why.

“Mabel, you’re- you di-” Dipper started to say, but no, she didn’t want to hear it.

“Hey bro, it was real nice seeing you but I think I gotta go,” she said quickly, cutting him off. A look of panic fell over Dipper’s face at that, but she didn’t let it hit her, turning and running as fast as she could.

“Mabel! Mabel wait!” Dipper yelled after her, but she ignored him and kept running. She couldn’t think about this.

She was just going to pretend it wasn’t real for a little bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a request for ourhappygirl500. it was really interesting to get back into the mindset of this AU (but pls don't expect anymore homestuck fics from me this was sort of a one time special request thing)


End file.
